


If The Bad Guys Don't Get You...

by PrincessBethoc



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: After Part 2, Hilda Spellman loves her sister, Hilda knows better than Zelda about some things, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 04:32:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18613207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessBethoc/pseuds/PrincessBethoc
Summary: There are some things that are not meant to be left unspoken. Hilda knows that better than Zelda does.Discussion of rape/non-con.





	If The Bad Guys Don't Get You...

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this after seeing someone on Tumblr say they'd have liked to have seen Hilda make Zelda face up to what Faustus did to her, regardless of how she tries to play it down. So, here it is...

The world around Zelda Spellman has changed.

Burned to the ground. Collapsed at her feet. She drowns in the ashes.

And now they watch her. They judge her. Like hawks circling their prey, they await her falsest move so that they may pounce. She knows that they must think her foolish to ever have been taken in by Faustus Blackwood. They must be livid. They must abhor her.

The role she has played in such destruction of her own coven, of her own family…she despises herself, so she cannot expect anyone else to hate her any less than that. There are days she wishes herself dead for her ambition and her blindness, until it dawns on her that she doesn’t deserve the relief. She can be High Priestess, instead, and take responsibility for what she has allowed to happen. She can suffer with everyone else, a fate she has earned.

Alone in her bedroom, she sits before the mirror. Zelda Spellman stares back at her, like nothing has ever happened to her. Like she knows who she is and what she does. Like her confidence is genuine. Like she stands on solid ground.

The ground shakes, though. In earthquakes of fear, the world is not a place she recognises. She is so susceptible to the evil of others. She had walked right into his claws. She had done so with a smile. With a smugness so misplaced it sickens her to remember it. How arrogantly she had told Sabrina she had married Blackwood in her absence…it makes her wonder if she had got exactly what she deserves from him.

Here she sits, High Priestess of a decimated coven, haunted by how she came to be in this position.

Too proud to admit even to herself what she allowed to happen to her, Zelda Spellman can now let the world believe the has shaken it off. Of course, she is not naïve enough to think they do not know what Blackwood has done to her; they have the common sense to know what happens to a wife controlled by that spell.

Even Hilda Spellman, the master of drawing out the parasites in any heart, has not addressed the issue. Once or twice, Zelda has caught her sister observing her carefully, but thus far Hilda has remained silent.

Sabrina, as outspoken as she is on any matter of female autonomy, and as much as she has always despised Blackwood, has not spoken of it. That does surprise Zelda; she had been bracing herself for her niece to at least have a well-aimed rant on the subject matter. It has not come, though. It is odd, but Zelda almost feels cheated, not having to endure something for which she has prepared herself so thoroughly.

For as long as they see her cope, though, they will not bring it up.

And so, Zelda dances around them, not a single missed step, and hopes they never see her stumble.

As High Priestess, she must be above failure. She must be flawless. There is a role that needs to be filled, a part that needs to be played, and it so happens to be the perfect distraction. She can dress herself up, rebuild the coven, and never let them see how little is left of her. Maybe, if she has more luck than she deserves, she will become what she pretends she is: whole.

“What are you doing?” asks the familiar voice of her sister. Zelda startles. She had been unaware that she was being watched; she has been alone all this time.

“Nothing,” murmurs Zelda. She does not look away from her reflection; she must stare that pretender in the eyes if she is to be bound by her lie.

“You’re bleeding!” Hilda exclaims. She puts her hand on Zelda’s and starts to lift it, but Zelda bats her away. Hilda lets out a yelp of shock and jumps backwards; Zelda knows she must have hurt her sister’s feelings with her reaction, but it is instinctive. She lives on her nerves these days, and she cannot afford to have anyone manoeuvre her limbs for her.

When she looks down, Zelda sees that she has dug her nails into the back of her left hand, so hard that she has drawn blood. It surprises her. She had not felt the pain, distracted as she had been by her own thoughts.

“You can’t do that, Zelda!”

Zelda raises an eyebrow at her sister, but Hilda’s resolve does not waver. She gets to her feet, looms over Hilda in the hope it will deter the onslaught.

It does not.

“Are you…” Hilda says carefully. Cautiously. Zelda almost lets out a derisive snort; even her own sister doesn’t know what to say to her. “Are you okay? After…”

“After what?” Zelda says coldly.

“You know…”

“You’ll need to be more specific, sister. Are you referring to our nephew being imprisoned, tortured and almost executed, or our niece fulfilling a prophecy to bring about the end of days and trapping the Dark Lord in her boyfriend’s body?”

The way Hilda looks at her makes Zelda shrink inside. She knows. She sees it. Even if Zelda pretends it isn’t there, Hilda sees it. “Don’t you think you should talk about it?” she asks kindly. Why must she always be kind? It makes it so much more painful to deceive her. It’s like kicking a puppy. Even Zelda hasn’t got it in her to kick a puppy – unless that puppy is a threat to her, of course.

“What is there to talk about? They’re both safe and well.”

“I’m not talking about Sabrina, or Ambrose, as well you know, Zelda! You’re not stupid, so stop acting like you are!”

Zelda sits back down and tries to ignore Hilda. She doesn’t want to lose her temper. Zelda no longer has the energy to spare. Not enough to find the rage required to kill her sister, at least.

“I know what he did to you. I know you were aware of it all, and you couldn’t do a thing about it. He took away your free will. He controlled you. He made you kill poor little Leviathan, so I can’t even imagine what else he was up to. That man _abused_ you,” she rattled off. She’s been keeping this in ever since the spell broke; Zelda knows her sister all too well.

“I was not abused,” scoffs Zelda. Her heart tightens. It doesn’t want to have this conversation.

“You couldn’t say no,” Hilda says gently. “Zelda, he took your consent from you.”

Zelda picks up a handkerchief and wipes away the blood from the back of her hand. Her nails have left angry red cuts in her otherwise smooth skin. They mar the image of survival Zelda strives to exude.

As Hilda rambles on about all the things Faustus Blackwood must have done, about how Zelda must be feeling, about how understandable her pain is, all Zelda can do is sit there, staring down her own reflection.

Hilda is right. Faustus took the ability to say ‘no’ from Zelda. She remembers her body on hers, her mind screaming to throw him off…and yet her body had complied with his spell, not her own mind. She had been left powerless. Helpless. And worst of all, she had been conscious of it all. She can’t even say she can’t remember it. Everything is there, ready to torment her at a moment’s notice.

“…I would never hurt you, Zelds, you know that,” Hilda says imploringly. “I’d never repeat anything you say about it, so why don’t you just tell me what-”

The palm of Zelda’s hand slams down onto the wood of her dresser. Hilda does not understand – Zelda hopes she never will. She spits it out with the only words she can find: “If the bad guys don’t get you, the good guys will.”

Hilda gazes at her. “Zelda,” she says. Her voice is a breath, so low it would be lost in a breeze. “Zelda…I’m not sure I know what to say to that.”

“You don’t need to say anything. In fact, I’d prefer you to hold your tongue.”

Zelda’s hopes for obedience had not been high in the first place, but she had not expected Hilda to step over to her, to close the distance Zelda has been so careful to create. “No,” she says defiantly. “No, I will not let anyone do this to my sister. I’ve already lost my brother, perhaps even to that horror of a man if Sabrina is on the right track there, and I refuse to lose my sister to him as well.”

It stuns Zelda for a moment. She has forgotten how Hilda loves her: with everything she has. How can she have forgotten that?

“What did he do to you?”

“I’m not sure,” Zelda confesses. “It’s all so…twisted. I was his wife – I still am – so he was entitled to-”

“Nothing,” Hilda cuts her off. “He was entitled to nothing.”

“He only took what a husband is due.”

“No. No. He took what he wanted, whether or not you consented to give it. He always does.”

“But it’s a wife’s duty to-”

“Did you want to?”

“I didn’t say no.”

“You _couldn’t_ say no! He made sure of it!” Hilda retorted. She almost shouts. Zelda wishes she would refrain from raising her voice. “Yes, you knew what was happening, but there was nothing you could have done to stop it. So, I’ll ask you again: _did you want to?_ ”

Zelda freezes. Those screams, those unheard screams, echo in her head. She had screamed. She had fought. But only she has heard it. Nobody heard her screams. Nobody ever will.

Screams. Fight. Nobody screams and fights if they want to do something, do they?

He had smothered her. Silenced her.

Nobody heard because he silenced her. He might as well have gagged her and tied her hands behind her back. Really, that is exactly what he has done; he just never needed the rope. And if he hadn’t bound her, she would have run. As soon as she saw him for what he truly is, she would have run. She certainly would not have had sex with him.

“No.”

There’s a moment in which Zelda doesn’t quite know if she said the word or thought it.

“And if you didn’t want to, it doesn’t matter if you’re his wife…”

“He abused me,” she whispers. The screams rip through her heart, puncturing her lungs and piercing her throat on the way up. “He _raped_ me, Hilda!” she bawls out. “He…he…”

She cannot speak. That image of perfection is shattered.

“I know,” Hilda says calmly. “I know. And I am _so_ sorry.”

Hilda kneels before Zelda and gently pulls her forwards into her arms. The entire universe seems to cave in as those words turn over and over in Zelda’s head. Her tears come unbidden, a nuisance to her while she so wants to maintain her composure.

“We’ll get through it,” she says. “Now you see it, you can come to terms with it. We’ll do it together, I promise.”

But this is Hilda. Her sister. Her kind, sweet, determined sister, who has always known this must come, because though Zelda so loves to say otherwise, Hilda is wiser than she is. Hilda knows how the heart breaks. She knows how it heals. She knows her sister, better than anyone. Zelda knows this is the reason Hilda has broken her; she believes they can find a way to fix her now that she has let herself split down the middle.

“I love you, Zelds,” Hilda whispers in her ear.

Zelda holds Hilda tightly, her arms around her sister like she might evaporate into nothing if Zelda doesn’t keep her close. With Hilda’s hand in her hair, and Zelda’s shield ground to dust, she lets Hilda hear the words she keeps to herself all too often: “I love you, too.”


End file.
